"It is of no use Commander. There is no response from any vessels of the fleet within range. We have managed to reroute sensors. The cruisers Barom'Turbik and Nomish'Burcal appear to adrift. No energy readings. The destroyers Duban'Murkat, Inish'Murcab, Gartan'Lurtres and Illia'Harvet also without power. We are picking up energy signatures at extreme sensor range. Because our systems are compromised, I can not detect the specific signatures pertaining to racial tech."

"Very well. Life-support? Maneuvering? Weapons?"

"Life support is functioning on battery power only. Engines are still offline Commander. Our engineer is attempting a myriad of bypasses to give us manual control, but it will take time."

"Prepare to launch the log bouy."

"Unfortunately even that system is currently down Commander. Again we are attempting to bypass the affected systems."

"For once I wish perhaps we had Pentarans working the engineering work-arounds. At least they..."

"Order pilots to their star-fighters. Radio silence, complete radio shut down. We'll blow the launch doors and launch them under their own power. We will not go down without a fight. Perhaps someone else had a similar idea... I hope."

Apologies Commander. The computer system appears to have become corrupted itself by the data contained herein. The Log Bouy is fully loaded with data, but we are now unable to access it. One Moment please. As I feared, we are also now locked out of our computer systems.

We also now appear to be broadcasting a signal in the open Commander. Broadband transmission from the looks. It should be getting picked up by all ships locally. It is a data burst transmission Commander. All ships within the system will be affected by this as well now.

... error ... error ... error ...

Sensors and life support are now off line Commander.

Get an engineering detail working on the situation and get us manual operations restored until our systems can be purged.

Officials in Pashawar have confirmed that militant activity in Chilas has dropped drasticly in recent days. An unknown paramilitary group had struck at militant Taliban positions within the town of Chilas for four days. Civilians casualty numbers have been sctechy, with Pakistani government officials claiming the unfortunate loss of a dozen people, while the Taliban claim that the unwarranted attack caused the deaths of 150.

The Pakistani government itself has cofirmed that 50 Taliban fighters and an equal number of Afghan insurgents were killed during the fighting. It appears that a small group of perhaps 5 to 10 individuals has caused the destruction within the town. The Pakistani government continues to deny its involvement as does the United States government which is currently dealing with serious issues within its own borders.

Eyewitness reports after the fighting ended confirm that a transport helicopter and ground attack helicopter both left the local airport on March 12th around midnight. No loses were suffered by the paramilitary group. Locals have refused to discuss any witnessed activity beyond that, possibly out of fear of reprisals from the group or from the Taliban.

"Do we know how the fleet was destroyed? How were they all taken so completely by surprise?"

"We do not know sir. The scout ship Valik'Burish made the jump out of the system along with this wreck of a dropship. They ships were being picked off enmasse by Daemon forces when she arrived. The dropship was retrieved, being the closest to the scout vessel, but the crew of the dropship was already dead."

"So, whatever caused this to take place could happen again."

"A possibility Commander. We are still trying to access the dropship's memory core, but much of the system data itself appeasr have been courrpted and lost. It's a pile of programming jibberish. The programming language seems to make no sense at all and is frankly of a type I have not seen before."

Preparations continue. We muster here awaiting further arrivals and confirmation of Rising point. The Fleet is well. We are well. Our human askaree continue training. Their new Combat Armor has been prepared and they are progressing better than we had hoped. They have the belief and it makes the strong. Only when the end comes they will see they were but adat (tools). They were told the same things we were told in the beginning, in the early days. But weak ears hear small things, so I shall not discuss it here.

The new Combat Armor has been fashioned in the form they themselves have used for untold generations now. The suits are akhdar (green) and the metal pressed into the form of the leaves of the great jungles of Awwal. Even the weapons take on the form of that which we use and they use...

Word has come. Ahhh. Yes. Our brethren have done very well. Mumtaz! The ikea is in place, and even now the new threat is being neutralized. Yes, the will of humans is easily bent.

Crew is secure. All ships have successfully passed the first hurdle of the Progenitor Project. Our fodder continues training within the bowels of all ships. When the battle is finally met, our prize jaysh will not be shedding the first blood this time. Victory is closer at hand than previously thought.

Word has already come to us that additional fodder will be joining us. Humans make far better askaree than we had thought possible, and their will is easily bent. Already, success has been had against secondary post-progenitor race 11. They were the only true threat against us here or at home and they have fallen like khira.

The latest reports out of New Palestine have three super tankers now listed as missing in as many days. All vessels were on route to the core worlds when all contact was lost.

The super tankers were carrying an estimated 15 million barrels of Crude Oil each and would have been in home world space within the week. The development means not only the loss of nearly 150 million credits in revenue to New Palestine, but also raises even more worrisome issues. The Alliance Navy, tasked with protecting the vessels during transit, has reported that several small escort ships have likewise now been listed as missing.

Admiral Conway, operating out of the navy's forward operations base on New Palestine has already sent a battle group to investigate the losses but so far have turned up nothing. The Pentaran government has also been concerned about the recent spike in piracy as well, though this most recent loss by the Alliance is the first time naval vessels have been lost in what is theorized to be a high orchestrated act of piracy.

Less than two months ago, a merchant convoy on its way to U.N. territory found itself under fire from vessels unknown. But that disorganized pirate ban fled the area when it turned out the merchant ships were sufficiently armed.

The Alliance government is continuing to actively pursue all leads and has vowed to end piracy within Alliance space. A bounty of 5,000 credits for each pirate turned over to Alliance authorites has officially been sanctioned.

The elders have said that the demon's have fled. I believe we know better. They lay in wait as they often do. The edlers claim they have been gone for fourteen cycles now. Others have said they have sen them. I have not.

The sky no longer grows dark with their ships. The ground no longer trembles their warriors. For twenty cycles, there has been no blood. No something, I know not what, but something has changed. It as the burcari on the air before the storm.

The elders say the other will come to help us again as well. I have pointed out the small ones have not themselves been here in over ten cycles. No. I am thinking we are alone now. We will continue to rebuild as we have for a generation.

Our own ships will dot the sky once again. Our own people will fly with the aruhu amongst the dark and touch the stars again. Perhaps it will be our people who achieve greatest in this next chapter.

Astronomers and Astrophycists working on the VLARS (Very Large Array Solar-System) have reported in a joint document a massive upsurge in gravitational fluctuations deep coreward in the Milky Way. What does this mean for average person in the Alliance? "We really don't know," said Gilbert Humbly, lead Astronomer for the Alliance Military Science Institute. "We have never seen data like this before and is frankly somewhat baffling."

Aubrey Melkin, head Physicist for GHI had one suggestion. "Fluctuations like this are normally seen when fleet ships complete an FTL jump bteween stars, but on a very small scale. These numbers are similar, but their scale is magnitudes larger. The only other thing that could rationally be argued was that it was a series of massive Supernova, but we have no corraberating data to go with such an assumption."

The Ministry of Military Affairs has had no comment on the possibility of this being caused by FTL-Jumps. "As with their theory of supernova, which is unfounded, the ftl-jump theory is likewise unfounded.

Researchers at the University of Mars have modeled the Daemon mothership derelict at the edge of the Erath-Venus system and even they claim that a ship that size would be insufficient to great the gravitational fluctuations seen.

At any rate, the event while interesting lies well beyond the range of Alliance or U.N. space and even possibly beyond the far side of Daemon space. Perhaps something is going on and it will divert Daemon attention from the rest of the galaxy. Perhaps this is the Universe's way of saying hello. Researchers will likely be looking for the root cause for decades to come.

The addition of New France and New Lafayette to the Alliance has created a new upturn to already robust economy. New France, actually settled almost two decades ago by settlers from the former NAU (North American Union) territory of Quebec, gained formal membership nearly a week ago. New France is the largest new member since the addition of New Palestine shortly after the founding of the Alliance. New Lafayette is a new Alliance colony world settled by colonists from the Core Colonies along with persons fleeing the NAU back on earth.

New France has already managed to cement themselves in the light manufacturing sector of the Alliance thanks in part to the transplanting of most of the industrial heart of former Quebec to the colony world. Alliance Colonization Command reports that this effort was the second largest colonizaiton effort by their ministry since the founding of New Bangladesh some 40 years ago. The number of ships required for the move and the types used tied up the ministry for almost 4 years, even with the newer and larger Mayflower class Colonzation Transports.

The number of independent colony worlds in known space within the Milky Way continues to climb as well. The total number of confirmed independent colony worlds settled by humans and Pentarans numbers 23, though the number may actually be higher. None of the other races in the Milky Way have independent colony worlds perce' as their governing structures do not permit such things.

In other news, can the Hendersonville Commandoes hold off the New Hartsville Wildcats for the title?